


Christmas Before the Fall

by Pochi



Category: Persona 3
Genre: 31 days, Aegis - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Persona 3 Spoilers, Ryoji Mochizuki - Freeform, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 02:45:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3961549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pochi/pseuds/Pochi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryoji spends his first and last Christmas with Aigis. Or what little there is of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Before the Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LJ community [31 Days](http://31-days.livejournal.com/), the prompt was for August 25, 2009-- **memories are films about ghosts**.

Fuuka had once asked Minato if he thought Ryoji was alone that Christmas. Despite the re-emergence of his memories and his defeat of Aigis as the arcana of Death, he was still Mochizuki Ryoji, and Christmas was a day for lovers in Japan. There was no way Ryoji was alone.

In the Christmas Dark Hour, when all late night Kirijo Lab personnel were safe in their coffins, he was standing at Aigis' side, hand over hers as he looked down at her gutted body and the progress made to put her burned out brain back together again. Were they going to make her stronger, so she didn't break anymore? Were they going to make her stronger, so she could finally put an end to him? Were they going to make her stronger, so she could protect _him_ , even though it was that child's destiny to die with struggle, to not let Death take him quietly into that neverending night?

Ryoji closed his fingers around her cold hand--the metal was frigid and unsettling, but her fingers weren't loaded. He brushed a fingertip over the open barrels, imagining--remembering--how lethal these guns could be. Weaker Shadows were pierced through and perished with guttural cries of despair, evaporating and turning to red-black smoke before his empty eyes. He saw the lead-gray smoke from her fingertips in a dissipating veil before her fierce blue eyes, a mimicry of human, but too focused, lacking emotion. Now those eyes were barely closed, a dull ugly color between dead lids and lashes, without the light of mimicry to bring them back to life.

Without the sparks flashing and the gears humming, this girl was just a disturbing metallic sculpture. She was a weapon, a weapon who had attempted to kill him not once, but twice--yet his most recent recollections of her were as a beautiful young woman who glared at him with those fiery blue eyes and told him he was dangerous, he was dangerous, he was dangerous... And now he had finally proven her right, if only to himself and the person she had been trying to keep him away from most.

Lifting up her heavy hand, Ryoji leaned down to give her icy fingers a chaste kiss. The scent of cordite was so heavy he could taste it, reminded of bullets grazing his face and leaving the same scent in their wake, mixing with the vapor of black Shadow blood. He rested a hand over her partially open eyes and tried closing them, but her lids were stiff, locked in place. A knot of uneasiness tightened in his throat, but he kept his hand over her unseeing eyes and pressed his mouth to her parted lips. Contrary to her lids, they were soft and pliable, but still so cold, still so unnatural, so inhuman. He smiled against them with a weary little laugh.

"I hope they fix you soon, Aigis-san," he told her softly as he stepped away, reluctantly releasing her hand. "If I don't get to speak with you again, then I'll say it now: I'm sorry. But I do hope to see you alive and well again, with the one you love. It will be... a nice memory... until the end."


End file.
